EarthCheck / EC3

Placement organization

Name of organization: EarthCheck / EC3
Town/city: Brisbane
Country: Australië
Website: http://earthcheck.org/

Student

Name of student: Lucas Boutahar

Specialist area: ITMC
Placement period: 2014-2015

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Environmental Advisory Group
Organization’s activities: Environmental tourism consulting, Certification, Benchmarking,Planning & Policy, Tourism Development, Sustainable Business development
Target group of the organization: Hotel and travel industry
Company culture: In general the atmosphere at Earthcheck is friendly and nice. Since my first day at work I have experienced a warm heart welcome and everyone, whether its a collegue or manager or even the CEO, told me always coming to them if there is anything I would like to talk about. I have never had the impression that I could not come to someone because of its higher working position.
Therefore I would describe the company culture as rather informel, even though of course as a trainee at Earthcheck, your position and the way your collegues and managers treating you also depends on your working attitude and behaviour towards them.
Number of employees: 35
Dress code: formal
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Half of the time you will work in consulting department and the other half in benchmarking and certification department.
Brief description of your daily activities: Consulting: In general helping with different projects, depending on project where you could help with. Besides that you do research and analysing data, preparing presentations, writing proposals.

Benchmarking and certifiaction:
Preparing data submission, clarification emails and benchmarking assessment reports. A couple of time you are doing different other tasks, which will be always different.
Brief description of your company assignment: The concious traveller (experience traveller) regarding the question how he is different to the current green and responsible traveller and how destinations can make use of them.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: In the beginning of your palcement you will be msotly in contact with the HR manager Melinda, who is very nice and helpful with you. She is also the manager and supervisor for the Benchmarking and Certification departement.
In consulting, your supervisor will be Mark, who is a good working manager and challenging you with projects. A lto of time he is not in office, because he is travelling a lot to clients, but you keep daily contact with him via Mail and phone.
All in all both supervisor are very friendly and helpful with you dring your time at Earthcheck.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? In general it is important to be a good team palyer and not be afraid of asking your collegues if you dont understant something.
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS Office, Word, Excel and Powerpoint are the msot important ones to know, but even if you dont know everything, collegues will explain you. Good internet browsing knowledge is helpful.
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French: Advanced
German: Mother tongue
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? First I started to look for accommodation on online site, such as Gumtree and flatmates.com. However it is not easy to find cheap and good accommodation in the beginning of the year, due to a lot of other stundents looking for flats at the same time. Personally I was very lucky, because during my time I was looking for an accommodation, I crossed another german girl accidentally who was looking for a new flatemate. Everything went very quick and on the same day I moved in my nw house. However I ahve to say that it is very easy to meet new people in Brisbane who are willing to help you finding accommodation!
How did you go to work every day? I used the Bus or bicycle to get to work, however it is not very cheap.

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Yes, you need a Training and Research Visa (subclass 402) or a working holiday Visa
Do you need a work permit? Yes. Either a working holiday Visa or training and Research Visa
How did you arrange the necessary documents: The company assisted me in finding the right visa. However if you want to do the training and Research Visa, it takes a lot of time and effort to do so, there are around 3 documents with each 50 pages to do, plus it takes around 3 months to do and you need to add several documents like birth certificate etc. Personally I reuqired my Visa through the working holdiay Visa, which you can purchase easily online and often within 48 hours you get it (costs around 320€). However the working holiday Visa can only be used once in your life, so think well if you want to use it.
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? 1-2 months
Did you need certain vaccinations? No
How long in advance?

Language course

Did you take a language course before you started your placement? No
Would you recommend to have a language course prior to this placement? No

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 1200,00€
Accommodation (monthly): € Around 450€; 640$ (a month), the rent is paid on a weekly basis and I paid 160$ per week. In general you can expect to pay 150$ – 200$ per week, depending on location and accommodation.
Local transport (monthly): € 115€ in a month for Bus (160$), after using the bus 9 times in a week (using a “gocard” – bus card), the rest is free, so weekends are free.
General costs of living (monthly): € 350€ – 450€. In general life in Australia is expensive, everything is more expensive.
Costs of visa: € 320€
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? Nothing

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
In general I have read a couple of experience report from former students living in Australia. Besides that I ahve spoken to several freinds who ahve lived there for a longer period and additionally I have simply researched things via internet.
However, Australia is still very close to our european value system and people who decided to come to Australia shoudl not be afraid of its big difference in culture.
As far as I have travelled, I have experienced Australia as a very friendly and open minded culture towards foreigners.
All in all it does not require a lot of preparation to go to Australia.
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? No

Future students on placement

Future students are free to contact me for further information: Yes
My e-mail address: lucas.boutahar@gmx.de

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: There are many things to do in and especially around Brisbane.
In general travelling on the weekdends is highly recommended, you have the chance to see many beautiful anture locations such as national parks, waterfalls, beaches etc.
Many things can be booked thorugh travel agents, however I would reccomend to try to do different activites on your own. Once you now someone from Brisbane who can show you things around, it is much more fun and far less expensive to do!
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Brisbane is the biggest city in Birsbane and does have many leisure offers.
South Bank in the city next to the river, has beautiful parks and a lagon lake where you can swim.
Koala Sanctuary is a great opportunity to cuddle a Koala or if you are more into going out and partying, Fortitude Valley is the location to go with many Bars and nightclubs and to party hard with friends.
The weekd end markets with different food and drinking spots is also evry nice to do, it s located at West end.

In general you also ahve possibilites to travell on your weekends to the hinterland with different bus coaches, or you can takes domestic flights to cities like Sydney, Cairns or Melbourne.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link